"As a first step, based on Statistics South Africa surveys, the review argues that inequality in terms of earned incomes dropped sharply between 1997 and 2000. But Statistics South Africa itself found that income distribution worsened slightly between 1995 and 2000. The review says that more people lived in poverty and, distressingly, more children suffered malnutrition in the late 1990s than five years previously. A key problem is that the review relies on the 1997 October household survey and the 2000 labour force survey instead of looking at the full trend from 1995 to 2002. In addition, the 1997 figures are out of line with the years before and after because income inequalities appeared to be much worse in 1997. As a result, the data suggests an unbelievable decline in income inequalities. It suggests that the Gini coefficient, which seeks to measure inequality, dropped from 0.68 to 0.59. In contrast, Statistics South Africa says the Gini worsened from 0.56 in 1995 to 0.57 in 2000."